Sitting in the Dark

My senior year of college I showed up late to a class. I looked into the auditorium to find it completely dark.

"Did the professor cancel?" I thought as I scrolled my email to find a notice.

No word from the professor. So I walked into the auditorium hallway and turned the corner where the seats were to find my classmates sitting in the dark.

"Something wrong with the lights?" I asked a classmate whose face glowed from the light on his phone screen. "Uh, I don't know," was his answer.

I walked over to the light switch, turned it on, and there was light.

The professor walked in a few minutes later, apologizing for being late, without knowing what just happened.

I witnessed a group of adults who paid tens of thousands of dollars to get educated but lacked the initiative to use the very resources their tuition paid for.

Some people graduate. Some do not. But to sit in the dark or not is a decision each of us makes each day.